Employees at Secure Banking Solutions are the kind of hackers that companies are seeking – those who know how to find holes in information security before the bad guys do.

“We like to say we’re out to save the world one community bank at a time,” said Jon Waldman, vice president of professional services.

Based in Madison and grown out of a graduate program at Dakota State University, the business recently ranked No. 3,254 on Inc. magazine’s list of the nation’s 5,000 fastest-growing companies.

Secure Banking Solutions was founded in 2006 and has grown to 39 employees. The company has started divisions for health care and government and has clients in 40 states.

“We want to make sure IT and information security is valuable to institutions and not just an expense,” Waldman said. “We try to partner with banks and become a member of their team.”

The company offers a wide range of services, including helping clients prepare for information technology changes and regulatory exams, along with assessing risk and helping with policy and procedure development.

Staff members also will test the human element of information security for businesses.

“You can have the best technology in the world, but if I can call you up and get information out of you or send you an email and get you to click on something, all that technology is moot,” Waldman said.

Threats are everywhere, including people inside a company, he said.

“People are after two things: money and information,” he said. ‘When you see a hospital or bank or other large company get breached for 250,000 records, you assume that’s half a million to $5 million worth of data” on the black market.

The company’s core business focuses on small and medium-size, privately owned banks. Pricing is based on asset size, and a variety of consulting and maintenance options are offered.

The First National Bank in Sioux Falls has worked with Secure Banking Solutions for almost three years.

“They’ve just been a tremendous asset for us,” said Timm Hoffman, vice president and chief information officer.

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The bank purchased a tool from the company to help with risk assessment, and it’s evaluating a self-assessment tool for business clients, Hoffman said.

Hoffman also has used Secure Banking Solutions for one-on-one consulting on information security.

“It’s really the No. 1 priority … in the banking industry,” he said. “It’s huge for us to not only protect your money but protect nonpublic information you give us to service you as a bank customer. That’s stuff we don’t want the bad guys to get.”

The company’s health care division is about 18 months old and gaining clients, including Avera Health.

Secure Healthcare Solutions provides Avera with everything from computer and network security help to stealthy social engineering assessments.

“Things like pretending to be somebody and see if you can get in the hospital,” said Jim Burkett, Avera’s director of technology. “Pretending to be a vendor to see if people will let you in, trying to see if you can get in by pretending to be somebody you’re not.”

Burkett praised the company’s national certification and said it has helped Avera find gaps in security and meet federal requirements for medical records security.

“Health care systems are pretty public and pretty exposed and pretty good targets, and patient information is valuable, so there are attempts all the time,” he said.

Data breaches are a threat to businesses of any size, said Jessie Schmidt, Sioux Falls branch manager for the Better Business Bureau. The organization is holding an informational event this month in recognition of national cyber security month.

“Data breaches happen every week from small restaurants to huge companies,” she said. “And for a small business, until it hits you in the face you don’t pay attention to it.”

Waldman and his colleagues at Secure Banking Solutions anticipate growing awareness of information security threats. They have partnerships with state banking associations and sales staff in several states. They also might add an office in Sioux Falls.

“We have historically grown 20 to 25 percent every year,” Waldman said. “We don’t see that trend getting smaller, probably just larger as we continue to expand into different verticals and expand our client base.”